Various modalities such as CR (Computed Radiography) devices, CT (Computed Tomography) devices, MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) devices, PET (Positron Emission Tomography) devices, and ultrasonic diagnosing devices are pervasive in medical facilities such as clinics and hospitals. Medical images taken with such modalities play an important role in diagnosing patients.
Conventionally, to obtain tomographic images of a patient as medical images using the CT device, the MRI device, or the like, a doctor previously designates a site, for example, head, thorax, abdomen, or the like in accordance with symptoms of a patient, and only tomographic images containing the designated site are taken. However, due to a setting error of an operator, a mismatch between the designated site and the site contained in the taken image sometimes occurs. In such cases, it becomes necessary to take the tomographic image again which imposes an additional burden to the patient and may also hinder the diagnosis. Moreover, if the modality is a CT device or the like using X-ray, the patient will be exposed to an additional dose of radiation.
Recently, however, due to increases in scan speed and capacity of a recording device, a wide range scan of the patient such as whole body CT scan is carried out at a time without designating a site at each examination. If the whole body CT scan of the patient is carried out, the desired site is included in the obtained tomographic images without fail. Therefore, the above described mismatch is surely prevented.
A large number of tomographic images is obtained when a wide range scan such as whole body CT scan is carried out. If the tomographic images are stored in film, a storage space, management and retrieval thereof puts a large burden on the medical facility. To solve such problems, a system which makes various information in the medical facility electronically available is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-006449. In such a system, the medical images taken in the medical facility are digitized and stored in the server. Thus, a storage space of the medical images in the medical facility is significantly reduced. In addition, using the server to manage and search for the medical images improves operation efficiency of the medical facility.
The server transmits the stored medical images to a viewer terminal or the like when a doctor interprets the medical images or uses the medical images for explanation to the patient. However, a transmission time may become excessively long to transmit the large number of the tomographic images obtained by a wide range scan such as the whole body CT scan. The doctor and the patient just have to wait during the transmission time of tomographic images, and the long waiting time may make them uncomfortable. To avoid such problem, medical images are transmitted on a predetermined time or data amount basis so as to control the waiting time (see the Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-006449).
However, the transmitted tomographic images do not always contain the desired site when the tomographic images are transmitted on a predetermined time or data amount basis as disclosed in the Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-006449. If the transmitted tomographic images do not contain the desired site, it is necessary to repeat the transmission. Thus, operation becomes complicated and time-consuming.
If the tomographic images obtained by the wide range scan are transmitted from the server, much time and manpower is necessary to search for the tomographic images containing a desired site. As a related technology, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-253539 discloses a method to automatically recognize a site contained in a medical image using image analysis. However, the above method recognizes the medical image one by one, and does not refer to collective processing of the medical images and collective transmission of the medical images to other devices.